Pantang's Curse
The Old Rule currently languishes under a magical curse authored by the wizard Pantang as punishment for a perceived betrayal on the part of King Sevy. History of the Curse Shortly after the period of reconstruction, King Cevye attempted to secure Pantang's loyalty by offering him Princess Trompander's hand in marriage. Pantang, however, proved a capricious and dangerous ally. After accepting the king's offer, he went on to summon a powerful demon who stole away with his betrothed, bringing the wizard's wrath down on the entire kingdom. Since that time Pantang has withdrawn from the royal court, and with him any chance of undoing the spell. The Night of the Curse The night of the curse was marked by a variety of peculiar phenomena, with the peasantry reporting all manner of disturbing signs and portents, ranging from a unicorn and griffin locked in a death embrace, each one half-devoured by the other, found in the fields around Simbelin, to rain clouds in the form of a broken crown above Castle Cevye. The most enduring story, however, and the most credible, concerns the lords of the great houses and is the source of the name by which the night is now popularly referred: The Night Of The Six Knocks. The account below is taken from YE MANYE AND TRUE AFFLICTIONf AND BLIGHTf TO BE FOUND IN YE OLD RULE and was related to Moonie of Moondoor by the current Lord Simbelin. "Midnight arrived with a great knocking on the gate accompanied by vigorous demands that Pantang the Wizard be granted entry. Awakened by his cries and the thumping of his staff I called for the guard, only to find he would not come - and thence for my wife, who was gone from our bed. Fear came upon me to find Lady Simbelin missing and the guard absent from his post, and so it was that I set about the castle calling for aid, while the knocking and shouting grew ever louder. I searched high and low, but no-one could I find - no guards, men at arms, knights, scullery maids, prisoners, torturers, jesters, cooks or courtiers. My childrens' beds abandoned! At the last, then, I knew the castle stood deserted. And with this understanding came yet another: the man at my door was not addressing servants, but the lord of the house: Pantang would have conversation with myself and myself alone. Through the empty rooms and corridors I travelled until such time - an age it seemed! - that I came upon the gate, and there met with the sorceror, the fury of Ungor roiling about his brow. Mustering all courage I told him he could not enter and of the proper courtesies he should observe if with a lord an audience he sought. But the wizard only laughed. 'You think you can deny me? Pantang, who keeps company with dragons? Who brought low the Sky Who Walks? I do not ask for your audience. I take ''it!" With that we were gone from the gate house and stood now in the Hall of my fathers, the wizard pacing up and down in front of the hearth, hurling accusations I did not understand and for which I had no answers. "Inconstant Lord! You think to make an ally of Pantang and yet all the while plot to betray him? Tell me now, where did my Bride go? How is it that promises are so easily made and then put aside? Betrayer, I call you! Oathbreaker!" My silence enraged him all the more. "I will not suffer this indignity! I who have walked the earth a thousand thousand moons and will yet walk it a thousand more! My princess has been stolen from me, and all thy schemes and tattered armies shall not vouchsafe thee from my wrath unless you make to bring her out! Speak!" I told the wizard all I knew, but it was nothing. "Of this matter, oh great thaumaturge, I cannot speak, for I know not who stole your bride or why. Pray, sit with me awhile that we might think on't this tragedy together, and by mingling thought alight on a conclusion pleasing to Pantang and Cevye both." Remembering it now, it was as though the whole kingdom begged his mercy, the houses Simbelin, Verinrue, Brewas, Grottinghurl, Chelfaunt and Cevye speaking as one. And so I knew even before I was told that Pantang had met with all six lords that night - to the same grim end. "Fool! If of this crime you will not admit, then understand this - three chances will I give you to save all you hold dear. Now....the first of these chances you have already forsaken - and so I ask for a second time: where is the Princess Trompander?" A glimmer came about the wizard's eyes as he spoke, which told not only of wrath but of mischief too, as if this were a game he played and nothing more. But the games of wizards are treacherous and I knew that were my answer not to his satisfaction, then, like a pawn in a game of cyvasse, I would forfeit the realm itself. "Sorceror Supreme, all who serve under Cevye's banner would sooner pluck their children's eyes from their heads than betray the trust of one so true, to whose love and companionship we owe a kingdom - not least our lives. And might thou know such truths in ways others cannot, Mighty Pantang. whose spells command mens' minds; their words and hearts? Oh Lord, look into this heart I pray, and against its loyalty a feather weigh!" His vanity pricked, the wizard drew back to think awhile.... but when at last he spoke once more the glimmer - returned - shone brighter than ever. "Weights and feathers and hearts you say? But why wouldst Pantang compel thee thus when it is your word he seeks - the truth freely given, unbidden by spells or art against whose usage not loyalty but my Lord's honour's weighedHMMMMMMMM? NOT SURE. Effects of the Curse The effects of the curse are still felt to this day. It afflicts each of the noble houses in different ways, often magically amplifying pre-existing problems. House Blackenblack House Blackenblack fell out of favour in the early days of the Great Retreat, when suspicions arose that Lord Blackenblack was in league with the Invincible Overlord. Whatever the truth, like the Lords of the other houses the Blackenblack nobility were forced to flee the Old Kingdom when the war turned in the Overlord's favour - their treachery, if treachery it was, affording them no quarter from their pursuers. While Cevye was loathe to move against one of the houses without proof of their betrayal, the royal attitude to House Blackenblack during the reconstruction was at best coldly indifferent and at worst openly hostile, with Lord Blackenblack's emmisaries shunned at court and financial assistance for building work withheld altogether. Because of this, Castle Blackenblack fell into disrepair long before the curse. It is also widely believed that Blackenblack's lands incubated the disease now rife throughout the Old Rule - which, again, was probably a result of Cevye and the other Lords' sustained disinterest in assisting the house with any internal problems not directly impinging upon their own families, vassals, trade or farmlands. Once Pantang's curse struck, however, Blackenblack's problems took on a depressingly literal dimension. Prior to the year of the Second Retreat those loyal to Blackenblack were simply ignored by the rest of the nobility, whereas after it they became impossible to communicate with, at least not directly. The earliest account of this disturbing magical shift can be found in the journals of Clarice of Ordnance, one of the first wave of pelorian clerics to travel to the Old Rule on a mission of healing, and, at that time, specifically tasked with the care of Sir Willem of Stormlake, Lord Blackenblack's critically ill nephew. The small makeshift house of healing within which Clarice and Willem were based was relegated to an enclosed area situated at least one mile outside Blackenblack Castle's grounds - the threat of infection so severe that any and all disease sufferers were kept in seclusion, with food and drink conveyed to and from the chapel via specially bred mules (the animals generally slaughtered within one week, long before the telltale welts and lesions associated with the most lethal conditions reared their heads). Because of this, the isolated group of clerics attending Willem remained ignorant of the wider problems posed by the curse until two days after it struck, when a neophyte was dispatched to Castle Blackenblack with instructions to report on their curse-wracked patient's condition. Clarice's notes from this time describe a horrific transformation.. ''"20 Summertide, Year 11 of King Cevye's New Rule Woken at 6 bells the day before yesterday by Sister Adele's shrieking. She is an unhappy woman at the best of times, but now, with everything that has befallen the child, I fear for her sanity and ask our Lord to grant her stronger powers of forebearance. After rising I made straight to young Willem's bedside, out of concern that his sickness, which for all our prayers we cannot heal, may have developed some new complication. What greeted me there, I here privately confess, chilled me to the bone. Willem was sicker than ever, grey vomit drenching the pillow into which he wretched and sobbed. As for Sister Adele, his supposed nursemaid, she was drawn into the room's far corner, trembling with terror as if in the presence of the Great Shadow itself. When I questioned the cowering neophyte as to why she did not attend to our young charge, Adele was able to form only three words. I set them down now in an attempt to make sense of the morning's events. '' ''HE TURNED AWAY. Such simple words, but to speak them brings the taste of ashes to my mouth and feelings of shame so overwhelming that - and for this I can only beg my Lord's forgiveness - it makes me want to bury my head in the mud and forsake His great light forever, for fear my corruption should be exposed like maggots erupting from dead flesh. '' ''At that moment, though, with Willem choking on his own stomach acids, I had no time to waste on the ramblings of a mad woman. Certain that the child would die if I did not act quickly, I snatched the phial of medicine to which the near catatonic neophyte clung as if it were some ward or holy symbol, and advanced on Willem's sick bed. The boy, for his part, did not mark my presence, his little body bucking and heaving with every desperate gasp. Knowing Willem would not hear me were I to ask him to turn, I uncorked the phial and reached for his head, a child's lullaby pouring unbidden from my mouth. But there was no calming the child, and, worse, he would not budge. I reached around, attempting to force the phial into his mouth, but - FIE! - I could do not it! Grasping only at tufts of hair, unable to find his lips, I struggled with him as the heaving got worse, until at last I called upon Sister Adele for aid. But she would not come. Just as I had given up all hope, however, the door flew open and - Pelor be praised! - Sisters Wendy and Mirabelle were at my side. I ordered them to spin young Willem so that I might find better purchase on his jaw, to which task they commited all their strength. All for naught. With a devil's fury we heaved and tugged, yet - how could this be? - still the boy remained rooted to the spot, drowning in his bolster. Tears welled in my eyes, for the child was surely done for, unless... Without a seconds hesitation I bid Wendy hold Willem still while I wrenched at the bed, sweeping the mattress, the frame and the pillow out from under him. Then, after catching my breath, the boy's rasping dwindling to a low wheeze somewhere behind me, I thanked the Lord for the mercy of bed fastenings hastily applied, and swung around to address my sisters. '' ''How can I describe what happened then? For reason balks at the mere thought of it. At first it came upon me that Willem had shied away again, afeared, perhaps, that I wished him harm, the medicine transformed by his delirium into some deadly poison, and I, his nursemaid, into an executioner. 'Turn him about!' I demanded, tired of this petty struggle, and with a child no less! The anger grew in me then. How was it that they did not respond, my barked commands illicting nothing but abject incomprehension on both women's behalfs? 'But Mother Clarice... He is already facing you...." In vain I protested, insisting they do as I bid, for even though the child's condition appeared now to be stable, it was still of upmost importance, if another fit were not to occur, that the little lord take his medicine. Mirabelle, never one to disobey an order, leant around the boy.... and puzzlement turned to horror. His Face!' she wailed. 'Lord preserve us, what has happened to his face? 'Still! Hold him still!' I cried. But Adele was moaning again. He turned away! He TURNED AWAY!! I rounded the child, and, Pelor keep me - what fell magic was this? Each time I made to approach Willem from the front, it was as if he revolved in Wendy's arms, shunning my gaze. 'Stop his wriggling!' I implored, knowing my words for foolishness. For Wendy's grip never slackened. Twas a grim marvel, to look upon that child, his vanished face transfixed by darkness. I grasped Willem's skull and beseeched Our Lord to draw the sickness from his tiny frame and into me. I called three times, and it was then, just when I was certain he would not answer, that the gloom descended. In conversation with Mirabelle afterwards she told of how the colour dropped from my face, how my robes turned from white to dull grey and of the long groan that burst from my chest as, just like child's top depleted of all motive force, I rotated slowly around, shunning sight. For my own part I can remember only snatches, and of this I am thankful, as I do not think it would be good to know more. At the first there was a knocking, and somewhere off in the distance heated words exchanged. Muffled talk of promises made and then broken. Oaths betrayed. I knew, then, that I was the accused and my Lord the accuser. Rejoice not that Pelor vouchsafed me this vision of his glory, for I did cower from it, knowing myself for a sinner and a whore. The unquiet nights meditating on his beautific countenance, the hatefulness I felt towards my own sisters when I perceived that they had wronged me, the revulsion I knew in the presence of those poor wretches upon whom I tended - it was all now turned against me, hateful visions reflected in His crystal light. The light that burned and blinded me, and from which I made to hide. '' ''And so I turned away from the light and into shadow, a door of ashes opening before me. '' ''I saw Willem there, beyond the door, huddled and alone, and others too: the boy's father, uncle and all who swear allegiance to his great house. Terror gripped me, along with the certain knowledge that were I to pass through that doorway, I could not again return to the world. I paused there, on Shadow's dismal threshold, terrified for my very soul. My mind delved deep into scripture, and in time it came to me; sweet remembrance of how, at the end of all things, our Lord hath promised to go down into the underworld and reignite the fallen suns, whenceforth Ungor's gloomy halls must shine bright as fair Elysium and all who toil there at last put aside their picks and tridents and know peace. Not only did I remember, but in remembering saw it too, that Great Day when the Highest will be made Lowest and the Lowest Highest, Heaven and Earth, the stars and the soil, mixed, like water with water, all of Creation praising His name. '' ''And LO! the blessings of Pelor were upon me, and all fear banished from my heart I strode, singing, into Hell. The next thing I knew Sister Wendy was above me, fanning my face and whispering words of healing. The test was over, my Lord's will be done. I wept, then, when I saw the child to whom's aid I had come too late asleep on his pallet-bed, all fever gone from him, yet banished forever from the world of men. My Sisters, too, were joined with me in my grief. When we were done weeping, exhaustion taking me, I begged Wendy and Mirabelle's leave and retired to my room, where I prayed for a day and night and then slept a full day more. '' ''And so I come to the end of my account of these terrible events. Glancing outside my window as I write, I note that the physic garden is thriving, the Devil's Claw in full bloom and the Mandragoras' fleshy petals spread wide, their soft midsommer gargling carried on the breeze; and mixed with their glottled chorus, birdsong, so high and sweet it cuts clear through the last tired vestiges of sleep now gathered about this aged frame, awakening the heart and quickening the pulse, all life joined in saluting the sun. Today is a new day, as bright and green and glorious as any other at this time of year. Despite this, however, I sense the shadows lengthening about the chapel's grounds, and in those nooks where the sun cannot reach it is colder than before. Something has changed, I think, a deep and subtle shift at the heart of things, the whole kingdom realigned - turned about from the summery years of reconstruction to face an autumn of decline, rot and encroaching shadow. And sensing this change, this vast slow movement away from the light, I shudder. For while I cannot say by what fell means this metamorphosis was brought about, of one thing I am certain: '' ''There is no way back. The door is shut." Clarice's journal entry is notable for a number of reasons, not least because of the way it vividly illustrates the difficulty of treating a pre-verbal, comatose or morbidly self absorbed patient incapable of facing their physician, a medical dilemma not uncommon in Blackenblack's lands from Clarice's time up to the present day and directly responsible for a statistically disturbing number of premature deaths. Breastfeeding, too, has proven next to impossible since the curse struck, with malnutrition responsible for the high rate of infant mortality in areas where mothers have limited access to pumps. These two factors mean that both babies and elderly people are especially rare throughout Blackenblack's domain, and overall population levels significantly lower than the already extremely low population levels across the rest of the fiefdoms<<